Book Reviews, Short Stories, Cartoons, Poetry and Non sense.

Random sad post

It is difficult for the world to understand giving up, to understand failure and to grasp what goes into the makings of a loser. There are many theories though: some would say that a loser does not try hard enough and anyone can do anything. Then there is the opinion that people performing poorly at something actually are lazy or do not have the interest to do it efficiently.

There is no heroism attached to failure. It is always ‘try harder’ or ‘better luck next time’. No one would understand the concept of wanting to lose, wanting to come second, wanting to run away–because it just doesn’t make sense.

There are things written about losers too. How they are lovable and how they are so laid back that stuff doesn’t affect them. But what about the tiny overlapping in the Venn diagram? How about the people who want to lose despite the fact that the taunts affect them. People who give it their best but do not want to win. There are people who are okay with failure but are not okay with all the contempt it brings.

Imagine a table tennis match. There is a guy who doesn’t normally play well but he is playing well today. He is knocking it out of the park. Well, he is actually keeping it on the table more accurately. He is surprised by the control he has suddenly come to wield over the game. He is suddenly about to win. He is one point away from game, set, match. Right at that moment, his feet start shaking. He doesn’t want to lose but he doesn’t want to win either. He want this moment frozen in time. He wants a time out. He wants to breathe and then he doesn’t want to come back to the match. He wants to leave. There is no way he can lose this game but he doesn’t want to play anymore. His feet are still shaking. He goes back to the game because you goad him to and he goes ahead and finds a way to lose.

Do you empathize with this guy? Of course not! He is not anti-competition. He was competing. He is not anti-winning, he hated when he lost. He just didn’t like the moments that were leading up to his win. It is hard to understand. He is the opposite of a lion heart. That is not to say that he is a coward. He could have won it if he was playing for you. He just didn’t want to win for himself.

Life does not take too kindly to this aberration in the Venn. Life is kind to losers. It gives them desk jobs with lots of paperwork that require mediocre intelligence. Life is kind to winners. It hands them large offices, lots of money and other stuff. But what about these misfits? Life gives them a little less than the winners and a little more than the losers. So they have to struggle as if they are winners and their rewards are those alms which are anyway handed to the common folk freely. They carry the weight of expectations because they did the mistake of showing potential once. And they expect it from themselves too. So they turn into cuckolds.